


anywhere with you feels right

by piecesofgold



Category: Titans (TV 2018)
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Found Family, Multi, Post-Canon, Show Only, Team as Family, dick's complicated feelings @ bruce
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-21
Updated: 2019-05-21
Packaged: 2020-03-09 06:41:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18911620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piecesofgold/pseuds/piecesofgold
Summary: four times someone tells dick he's a parent & one time he doesn't need telling.





	anywhere with you feels right

**Author's Note:**

> so heh. this is new territory for me.
> 
> i binged watched titans on netflix and fell in love with the found family dynamic and dick grayson fumbling with being a sudden husband and dad of two lmao.
> 
> i've never read dc comics so pls don't crucify me for my vague knowledge of certain characters i just wanted to write found family fluff from the show.
> 
> title; lauv - paris in the rain

i.

their move to gotham is a hesitant one - dick holds out for weeks until kory and the kids hold an intervention with all the pros of actually having a place to stay that’s fairly lenient on its view of vigilantes.

“no more running, no car-jacking, actual co-operation of the police rather than them trying to kill us -“ kory lists off.

“and we could go back to school!” gar pipes up. “well - i never really went to one anyway, i sort of - homeschooled myself -“

“it’d be a fresh start, right?” rachel offers. “look, we know you have your...reservations about being back there, but where else are we supposed to go, dick?”

so they move. pack up the mini-van with what little they have and haul ass on a 15 hour drive to gotham city. rachel and gar fall asleep in the back seat, her head on his shoulder and him snoring softly with his face in her hair. dick feels a rush of affection every time he glances up at the rearview mirror, feels his heart swell when kory leans back and snaps a few photos of them.

“hey,” she taps his thigh. “this is gonna be good for us, i promise. the worst shit is over. and gotham may be bad-place central, but it’s also the safest place for us.”

dick tightens his grip on the wheel, glances up at rachel and gar once more. “i know, i just -“ he clears his throat. “i swore i’d leave robin behind in gotham. leave bruce behind, his... _power_ over me. going back might set it all back.”

kory’s hand stays on his thigh. “but you’re not going back as robin. you’re not going back as bruce wayne’s protégée. dick, you don’t owe him a damn thing. if it really bothers you, we can go somewhere else. i don’t know, starling city? central?”

dick laughs bitterly. “oliver and barry would run me out of town to gotham without a second thought.” he sighs. “you’re right. it’s probably the best place for us. i just - don’t think i’m ready to face him yet.”

“so don’t.” kory moves her hand to his, squeezing. “he tries to pull you back, i’ll light him up like a christmas tree.”

dick laughs, the tension in his chest easing a little.

their new house is a hell of a lot bigger and cleaner than most of their stay-overs - dick knows bruce probably bought it out for them when he found out dick was coming back, but dick just clenches his jaw and forces himself not to think about it. just because he takes a house doesn’t mean bruce is entitled to a conversation with him. kory tilts her head at him, knowing what he’s thinking, but he just shakes his head at her minutely. he said he’d deal with this, for her sake and the kids. he’s making sure to do that, fuck what bruce tries.

exhausted from the drive, they’re asleep almost as soon as they’ve unpacked. dick buries his face in kory’s hair and breathes deeply, forcing himself to relax.

they have about three hours peace before gar starts screaming.

dick’s out of bed and stumbling down the hallway before he even registers he’s awake, bursting through gar’s bedroom door.

it takes him approximately half a second to realise there’s no assassin, no one trying to kill gar, no direct threat to his life other than the nightmare making him yell and thrash on his mattress.

“gar, buddy -“ dick tries to pin his arms, regretting it immediately when he feels claws dig into his forearms. gar spasms, still crying out, and dick quickly moves behind to wrap his arms around him, trying not to yell. “gar, wake up, you’re okay - _ow_ \- it’s just a nightmare, i’m here, you’re okay -“

gar’s body eventually relaxes, shivering. “dick?” he whispers weakly, eyes panicked seeing the blood on dick’s shirt. “oh, god -“

“hey, it’s okay,” dick quickly reassures him, ignoring the pain in his arms as he hugs gar close to his chest, one hand carding through his green hair. “it was just a nightmare, you’re fine, bub, it’s alright.” gar whimpers, clutching dick’s arm as if he’s afraid of him disappearing.

dick keeps holding gar close, rocking slightly, murmuring reassurances until gar’s breathing starts to regulate. “wanna tell me what that was about? you haven’t had a nightmare like that in a long time.”

gar shakes some more before answering. “congo,” is all he says, barely above a whisper, and dick’s heart just about breaks. he hugs gar tighter, sighing.

“i’m sorry, kiddo,” he says quietly. “you...try and get some sleep, okay? i’m not going anywhere. i’m right here.”

gar doesn’t sleep for hours, tossing and turning until he’s sprawled on dick’s chest, snoring lightly. dick keeps a hand in gar’s hair, dozing every few minutes until gar flinches in his sleep and dick jerks awake to prepare to calm him down.

the sun is well up by the time kory knocks gently on the door, coffee in hands. “hey. you okay? heard the yelling last night, but you sounded like you had it handled.”

dick nods tiredly. “yeah. bad night.”

kory looks down at gar, concerned, reaches a hand out to brush against the dried blood on dick’s sleeve. “what happened?”

“nightmare,” dick sighed. “the move must have triggered something, i don’t know.” he winces, knowing he needs to get up and wash the cuts on his arms. “rachel okay?”

“well, she can feel the two of you from across the house, so, not really.”

dick closes his eyes. “give me a minute, i’ll talk to her.”

kory leaves them quietly, and dick begins to gently wake up gar. “hey, kiddo, you want breakfast?”

gar snuffles, barely awake. “dad?”

and dick freezes.

it’s not the first time gar or rachel have called him that - hell, he’s stopped being surprised by rachel calling him “mom” while half asleep. anytime they’ve called him “dad” has been dripping with sarcasm.

gar, saying it while not fully awake, face meshed into dick’s chest, is the exact opposite of sarcastic. dick’s heart swoops to his stomach, and he clears his throat hastily. “gar, c’mon, breakfast.” he ruffles gar’s hair once more for good measure before easing the boy off him.

gar rubs his eyes, hair sticking up in all directions, blearily blinking at dick. “breakfast?”

dick’s heart and brain are still going into overdrive, but he shakes himself off. “get up in the next five minutes and i’ll make you something.”

in the kitchen, he hugs rachel until his ribs hurt and she’s calmed down, and gar stumbles downstairs as dick starts frying eggs.

he very pointedly does not think about or mention the dad thing.

* * *

ii.

dick joins GCPD, kory branches into bounty hunting and the kids enroll into school. everything is relatively calm for a while. dick doesn’t trust it one bit.

two months go by before captain eastbourne practically forces a partner on him. “grayson, i like you, you’re a great cop, probably my best detective -“

“not saying much there, captain.”

eastbourne glares at him. “grayson, please. great detective, but you’re also a loose canon. i took a hell of risk hiring you after half of what i heard from detroit. take the damn partner. give it a month, if it doesn’t work out, i won’t mention it again.” dick doesn’t bother arguing with her after that.

briona cruz is a transfer from minneapolis who curses people out in spanish and swings a right hook at anyone who can’t take a hint, and dick wants to avoid her so badly he almost goes to extreme lengths to do so. right up until two weeks into their partnership when he’s running down leads without her again and she shoves him into the locker room with a look in her eyes that bodes no argument.

“look, i get it, you have to be the mysterious dick grayson, you’ve got a rep to keep up. that might have worked in detroit, might have worked wherever the hell you were between there and now. but that’s not gonna work with me, alright?” she hisses at him, an arm against his chest keeping him pinned to the lockers. “i don’t give a shit what you’ve got going on in your life, and i don’t expect you to tell me. but what i do expect is for you to _be my damn partner_. i know you’re the best detective we’ve got and you know i’m almost as good, so you know we’d work a hell of lot better together than alone with me chasing your ass every other day and making excuses to the captain. got it?”

he gets it. he tells kory about it that night and she laughs so hard she almost spills her beer. “you better invite her to dinner or i will,” she insists.

“ooh no, not a chance, i get enough humiliation from everyone in this house.”

he does invite briona to dinner, eventually. she and kory get on like a house on fire over briona’s champagne and the veg paella gar makes. rachel and gar beg her for stories of dick at work - as if they haven’t seen the best and worst of him already. “it’s nice hearing you be more...normal. very un-robin,” gar tries to explain when dick asks him. dick takes it. they somewhat avoid personal stories, though she and gar end up spending a good hour bonding over vintage films, and she promises rachel a star wars marathon in exchange for a lord of the rings one. dick falls asleep warm with kory curled around him and decides a half-civilian life isn’t the end of the world.

briona corners him one afternoon. “my wife’s making you dinner next week. you don’t really get to say no - her favourite flowers are lilies, she prefers red wine, do _not_ mention the dodgers or the yankees unless you want your ear chewed off, and definitely no cop talk.” which is how he meets her wife ava, and their two dogs felix and ama. ava homemakes lasagna in a tiny steaming kitchen and tells him stories of how she and briona met in minneapolis, of how they both proposed at the same time on vacation in france and they’d ended up crying laughing in each other’s arms on top of the eiffel tower. briona’s face is red to the roots of her hair, covering her face in embarrassment and hiding behind a wine glass. dick can’t remember a week he’s laughed so much. donna would be proud of his small talk.

he’s back from chasing another dead lead and about to ask briona if she’s found anything, knowing she won’t have, when she cuts him off short. “hey, you left your phone, your daughter called. practise is back on after classes, so she’s gonna need you to pick her up at six-thirty.” she tells him without even looking up.

dick doesn’t even process the second half of the sentence. “my - what?”

briona does look up then, eyebrows raised. “rachel? your kid? needs picking up after a school club?”

dick just stares at her. “i - right, yeah, okay, i’ll text her.”

briona’s bemused brown eyes follow him to his desk. “okay, you look like you’re having an identity crisis. i say something?”

“no, no it’s -“ he looks up at her, laughs a little. “just - no one’s called rachel my daughter to my face before, you know?”

briona’s eyes go comically wide. “wait, she’s not - grayson, are rachel and garfield your kids?”

dick doesn’t really know how to explain the not-exactly-legal entanglement of vigilante adoption, so settles on, “no - i mean yes - they’re my kids, kory and i are their...legal guardians, guess i just - never figured myself a parent.”

briona tilts her head, eyebrow cocked. “well that sounds like a conversation you shouldn’t be having with me.” she gets up, pats his shoulder. “pick your daughter up, grayson.”

“yes, ma’am.”

* * *

iii.

dick doesn’t wear a mask nearly as much as he used to, which - feels alien, honestly. the sudden domesticity of his life feels like one of trigon’s hallucinations.

sometimes, though. sometimes a case comes up so profoundly against every fibre of his being that he comes homes battered and bruised and no one says a word. kory silently wipes blood off his face and stitches up his scars, and dick loves her. dick loves kory more than he knows how to handle and he wishes he could show her more than he does because god knows she deserves better than him and the mess he’s dragged her into. kory, rachel, gar. sometimes he wants to fit them all in the hollow place between his ribs where he knows they’ll be safe and loved.

he says that’s to kory, once, in bed. her hair’s brained down her back and her eyes look amber in the lamplight. her smile is still the most beautiful thing he’s seen. “remember when i told you that no one can carry it alone?” she murmurs, carding a hand through his hair. “you’ve come a long way, dick grayson.”

dick brushes his thumb over her lips. “what about the kids?”

“they’ve adjusted well, all things considered.”

“yeah.” dick goes quiet.

kory gives him a look. “what?”

“they call me dad, sometimes. briona called rachel my daughter like it was - obvious. and it got me wondering how i could be anyone’s father figure.” he takes a deep breath. “sorry, i shouldn’t saddle you with this -“

“hey, they’re my kids, too. talk to me.”

dick swallows. “my dad died. i watched him die. and bruce...i don’t know if he knew the difference between mentoring and parenting boarding on child abuse. donna once told me that robin was an echo chamber for all of batman’s rage and grief. how can you project that on a kid? how do you be a...normal parent like that?” he pauses. “why are you smiling?”

“because the very fact you’re pointing out everything batman did wrong means you already know to do the opposite.” kory kisses his hand. “they don’t expect you to be a perfect parent, dumbass, a perfect father - anymore than they expect me to be a perfect mother. they love you anyway.” she turns off the lamp and curls around him, yawning. “face it, wonder boy - we’re parents.”

* * *

iv.

donna crashes at their place for a week - accompanying diana on a mission with bruce, obvious but unsaid. gar pesters her for hours with questions about themyscira, the amazons, her training, being wonder girl. dick finally stops him at midnight. “hey, don’t you have a math test tomorrow?”

gar looks up at him, eyes wide. “but -“

“ah, nope, you’re not flunking again. bed.”

gar grumbles and donna laughs. “hey, pass your test and i’ll let you borrow one of my books.”

gar lights up and scurries off.

donna wraps herself in a blanket and takes a swig of beer, watches dick clean up and whistle quietly to himself. “well, aren’t you the picture of domesticity.”

dick snorts. “don’t even. kory reminds me enough.”

“it suits you. looks like you finally figured out the difference between quitting and stopping.” she pauses. “i have a bone to pick with you, though.”

dick goes still. “am i in trouble?”

donna laughs. “far from it, bird boy. just something kory mentioned.”

“i knew you two being friends was a bad idea.”

“shut up, you love it.” she shifts to let him sit beside her. “she told me, though. about you being scared of the father role.”

“not _scared_ ,” dick hastily interrupts. “concerned. i -“ he pauses. “i don’t know how not to be him.”

donna’s eyes go soft. “dick, you’re already not him. you’re _you_ , and those kids love you for it.” she pats his arm. “maybe they’ll never call you dad, but that doesn’t mean you’re not.”

dick rolls his head back, sighing. “why do you have to be right about everything?”

donna grins at him. “older, smarter, prettier, grayson. you know this.”

dick thwacks her with a pillow.

* * *

\+ i.

“well, that’s ninety minutes of my life i’m never getting back,” briona yawns, dumping an empty styrofoam cup in the trash.

“what, a meeting with the commissioner isn’t how you want to spend a monday morning?” dick cracks his neck, wincing.

“believe it or not, cruz, it’s not the highlight of my week either.” briona jumps, looking slightly embarrassed, as gordon catches up to them, frowning at his phone. “trust me, i would much rather be with my daughter looking at colleges.”

briona cringes, lightly touching dick’s arm. “i’ll meet you in the car.” dick nods.

“how is barbara, sir?” dick asks gordon, sincere. he likes barbara, has spoken to her a few times - mostly concerning her batgirl antics. _i’ve already got my dad and bruce worrying about me, dick, i definitely don’t need you_ , she’d said to him, rolling her eyes.

“still a genius, the light of my life, and sending me to an early grave with worry.” gordon looks up at him. “you got kids, grayson?”

it’s the first time dick can remember not hesitating. “yeah, two of ‘em. teenagers.”

(the earth doesn’t split, reality doesn’t shatter. pride swells in his chest, and something akin to relief as if his mind is telling him _finally, idiot_.)

gordon laughs, slapping him on the shoulder. “nothing quite like it, is there?”

dick thinks about holding gar during a nightmare, about rachel’s sleepy complaining at breakfast, the first time he’d seen their school report cards and the love and pride he’d felt. thinks about kory up late helping rachel with homework, of the weekend they’d done nothing but marathon the original star trek series - rachel had fallen asleep on his chest, gar with his head on kory’s lap.

nothing in the world could compare to that.

“no, sir,” dick tells gordon. “nothing like it at all.”

**Author's Note:**

> comment and kudos welcome!


End file.
